The Face of Battle

About this book

The Face of Battle is military history from the battlefield: a look at the direct experience of individuals at the "point of maximum danger." Without the myth-making elements of rhetoric and xenophobia and breaking away from the stylized format of battle descriptions John Keegan has written what is probably the definitive model for military historians. And in his scrupulous reassessment of three battles representative of three different time periods he manages to convey what the experience of combat meant for the participants whether they were facing the arrow cloud of Agincourt the musket balls at Waterloo or the steel rain of the Somme.